The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-12-31
THE OLD KICKER.
Pack,s Sun.

COue0 udQ Deen De8uS AL DreAkIaSC.
 "Naw, I don't," said the old kicker,
 kicking bundle of ready-made cloth
 ing which sewing woman had left
 on the floor, which she was taking
 back to store. "Did you ever listen
 to the plaintive wailing of a carload
 of hogs?"
 "Sir, do you mean to insult me, !"
 asked the walker, with indigna-
 tion. "If your age did not protect
 you, I would smite you."
 "I meant nothing personal" said
 the kicker. Speaking of hogs, have
 you ever travelled much with hogs" addressing the grocery drummer, who
 was reading paper.
 70, yes, considerable" said the drummer. "I have been riding down
 town in your company almost every morning for years. Yes, I should say I had travelled with 'em considerable" !" and he resumed his paper without moving muscle.
 "You think you are smart, and I guess you are," said the old kicker, "but what was getting at was live hogs. For the last week I have been travelling considerable, and it has been my fate to associate with hogs good deal. I mean stock trains, with any,
 where from one to forty cars of hogs"
 "You haven't been so very lonesome, then," said the insurance man.
 70, dry up," said the old kicker, ''and give man a chance. was on my way to St. Paul, and was asleep in Pullman. It must have been about midnight, when I was awakened by such squealing as man never heard before. I arose and called a porter, and asked him what it was, and he said we were stopped by hot box, and a freight train off the track, and few things like that, and that q train load of hogs was on a side track. We'll, talk about noise, I never expect to hear another such noise until we all get to hades, and you fellows are given your first touch of fire and birthstone. There seemed to be a million hogs, all squealing and walking over each other. For few minutes I was stunned, and then called the conduc- tor and asked him if he couldn't do something. He said he could go out and stir up the hogs if I wanted him to, if it was too quiet. asked him if it was the hot box which smelled so, and he said it was the hogs. O, dear me, it was awful. Every little while a few thousand of the biggest hogs would yell right out as though they were being butchered, and the other hogs would join in the chorus. One lady woke up and stuck her head out between the curtains and asked if any body was hurt. The conductor said, "No, madam, all the trouble is, I have got hot box on my train." She looked at him sorrowfully and said, "Why don't you take some ice and place it on your warm chest and cool it, and not scream like that, and rob the people of their sleep?" The con- ductor went out of the car, and the hogs went on squealing again, and she said, ''Poor man, how he must suffer-" An old granger who was in an upper berth, heard the squealing, and said, "By gum, I guess I have overslept and the boys have got up and begun butchering the hogs without the old man." Then he came out into the aisle and wanted to know what was the trouble, and 8 travelling man told him there was an Italian opera in the next car, going to St. Paul, and the woman told him some gentleman with lantern was down sick with a warm box, or some such thing. The travelling man said a heated journal had caused all the and the lady said if the Jour- nal caused all that woe no reader of the paper was safe, and she would stop her Journal as soon as she got back to Milwaukee, as she might be taken with a hot box and suffer as that poor man did with the lantern. We'll, for two hours our train lay there beside that stock train, and the noise got worse, until everybody was nearly crazy. The lady stuffed both pillows in one ear and had mysteries and wanted some of us to go and find the poor man and put flaxseed poul- tice on his hot box. The granger be- came faint and opened his window for air, and when the odor from the stock struck him he revived, but the lady fainted away. When she was brought to her senses She said she dreamed she was at Richfield Springs, N. Y., and could smell the water just as plain as could be. After we are all dead, the stock train started, we heard the last dying squeal of the whole million hogs, the fog shovelers shoveled away the odor, the hot box on our train got over it, and we moved on, just alive. Now want to get up a petition to the legislature to pass law that stock trains shall not be run on the same road that passenger trains are run. Will You sign it2 No2 We'll. you